Keselowski aiming for a third straight win

Sep 19, 2014 - 9:54 PM Loudon, NH (SportsNetwork.com) - Brad Keselowski enters this weekend's race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway as the points leader and the hottest driver in the Sprint Cup Series.

Two weeks ago, Keselowski won the series' regular-season-finale at Richmond and earned the first seed in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship by virtue of his four victories this season. The driver of the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske then began the 10-race Chase last Sunday with a win at Chicagoland.

It's the first time in his Sprint Cup career that he has scored back-to-back victories.

Keselowski's win at Chicagoland assured him that he will advance into the second round of the Chase. He currently holds a seven-point lead over Jeff Gordon, who finished second in the Chase-opener.

"It felt good coming into the Chase as the top-seed, and it feels very good to know that we've advanced to the next round with two races to go," Keselowski said. "We have good momentum right now, and we know that we have to keep developing the car and pushing as a team, whether it's on pit road, handling, spec or driver tactics. We're just going to stay focused, keep working and see what happens."

Any driver who's in the 16-member Chase field that wins one of the three races in the opening round, known as the "Challenger Round," will automatically move on to the next round, referred to as the "Contender Round."

The Challenger Round will conclude with the Sept. 28 race at Dover, and the Contender Round, in which the Chase field is trimmed from 16 to 12, will begin with the Oct. 5 event at Kansas, followed by Charlotte (Oct. 11) and then Talladega (Oct. 19).

"That second bracket, the Contender Round, I think should be called the 'heartbreak round'," Keselowski said. "It's going to break someone's heart in the sense that a really good team will probably not make it through that bracket because of the random factor with Talladega and Kansas. That bracket is probably the most concerning to me."

Keselowski, the 2012 series champion, has won a Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire and Dover as well as Kansas, Charlotte and Talladega within the last two and a half years.

In July, Keselowski won at New Hampshire for the first time, coming in his 10th start here. Can he become the first driver in a decade to score a season- sweep at this flat 1.058-mile oval?

"I think we're definitely gonna have a lot of speed," he said. "I would be surprised if we didn't, but winning here at New Hampshire isn't all about speed. The strategy end always seems to come into play. I think more often than not this turns into a bit of a fuel mileage race for whatever reason. I'm not sure why. And that can really shake it up. It's so difficult to pass that being the fastest car here is probably more so than most other places not always the strongest indicator of success."

In 2003, Jimmie Johnson became the first driver to win both races at New Hampshire in the same season. Kurt Busch accomplished the feat here in 2004, the same year he won the inaugural Chase championship.

There have been 13 different winners in the last 13 Sprint Cup races at New Hampshire, which puts this track in a tie with Texas for the all-time record streak without a repeat winner.

When Keselowski won at New Hampshire two months ago, he led a race-high 138 laps, including the final 36.

"I like tracks we win at," he said. "Those are always my favorite. I tell people all the time when they ask what my favorite track is it's always the last one that I won at. It seems like a cheesy answer, but as a driver, we're very self-serving. Right now, my favorite race track is Chicago, and a few weeks ago before we won Richmond, I would have said Loudon (New Hampshire) was my favorite racetrack. So it's time to make Loudon my new favorite racetrack again."

Keselowski also has four top-five finishes and six top-10s as well as two poles at this track.

Forty-three teams are on the entry list for the Sylvania 300.

Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup. Date: Sunday, Sept. 21. Race: Sylvania 300. Site: New Hampshire Speedway. Track: 1.058-mile oval. Start time: 2 p.m. ET. Laps: 300. Miles: 317.4. 2013 Winner: Matt Kenseth. Television: ESPN. Radio: Performance Racing Network (PRN)/SIRIUS NASCAR Radio.